farm once supplied Perth’s Swan Brewery with one third of its needs.
Its success was relatively short-lived, and by 1983 the hops drying
shed had been transformed into a hotel reception. The farm was
replaced with Karri Valley Resort, a holiday and trout fishing retreat
slotting log cabins between the tall trees. But the tranquil forest
setting didn’t exempt it from drama. Two years later, as the karris
watched on silently, a group of Orange People repurposed the low-key
nature escape. A world-wide cult started by an Indian self-help guru, its
ethos was to reject materialism and embrace mind-altering sexual
expression, with its disciples (intermittently) clothed in sienna.
Within months, numbers at the commune grew and the townsfolk
panicked. The rumour mill went wild with talk Pemberton could
become the sect’s new global base. Swift moves were made to sell the
resort and get the Rajneeshees out.
Decades later, the only marks left by the Orange People are in
locals’ memories – ask around and the stories flow. But residents are
just as animated (and a lot less agitated) about the resurgence of Karri
Valley Resort. After years of decline, it has been bought by the Royal
Automobile Club of WA, which is busy returning the once busy
getaway to its former glory. Its log cabins and lakeside rooms have
been given a spit and polish, the trout restocked and the lake beach
extended. At night, I sit in the glass-wrapped lakeside restaurant and
watch a full moon illuminate the karris’ ghostly trunks. I stay but one
night and wish it were a week.
Driving away from the secluded resort, the trees part for family-owned
wineries, sprawling truffle farms, established apple orchards and virgin
avocado plantations. Just off the quiet highway, a strawberry producer
welcomes drop-ins with $10 boxes of second-tier fruit. Roadside stalls
with honesty boxes take contributions for corn, hazelnuts and
stonefruit. More than 50 types of fruit and veg are grown in these
parts – it’s where the Pink Lady apple was born.
Eyeing agri-tourism as a future growth area, local farmers have
recently created the Southern Forests Food and Farm Experience, a
multi-day tour authentically sharing rural life and work. They greet
me with sun-kissed smiles and hearty handshakes, eager to cross the
divide between country and city, producer and consumer. Hopping
from one property to the next, I meet chirpy free range chickens and
help pack their pastured eggs into cartons; strap myself in to a jerky,
manually-operated avocado picker; get down on my hands and knees
to dig new-season potatoes and cheer on a sniffer dog as she locates
buried black gold on the biggest truffle farm in Australia. Eating fruit
plucked from the tree turns out to be an underrated pleasure. “My
grandfather came out here from Tuscany in 1904,” says fruit and nut
grower Tony Fontanini, as he crunches into a snap-fresh nashi pear.
“He looked for the biggest karri trees, because he believed that’s
where the best soil was.” Fontanini stops to marvel at the native forest
edging his orchard. The sun shafts through pale limbs, creating stars
of light that warm our faces, as our necks arch towards the lofty canopies.
No matter where we go, those towering trees remain in the frame.
Their forebears have been chopped and sawed into Donnelly Village,
a former milling town frozen in time. Thirty-five wooden workers’
cottages, a school and general store make up the hamlet that was built
in the 1950s for the Bunning Brothers – the same pair who went on
to create Bunnings hardware stores. The UK immigrants constructed
saw mills throughout the region, accelerating the felling that began in
the 19th century. The vintage machinery remains, but the cottages
are now filled with holidaymakers drawn by the magic of the
regrowth, not its export potential.
In Pemberton town, milling only ceased in 2016, three years and
a century since it opened. Historic workers’ cottages still line the
streets, inhabited by local families going about their day-to-day
lives behind weathered, grey picket fences and garlands of purple
jacarandas. The collision of past and present is laid bare on the town’sThe 100 | Back to nature